By picking up unsorted trash less often, Portland wants to divert waste from landfills and churn this leafy city's considerable volume of vegetation into compost.

WSJ: Portland Creates Buzz by Cutting Garbage Pickups

There was believed to be a backlog of more than a million items of unsorted mail as a result of the action which began last Thursday.

BBC: Postal staff back to work

"Each time they would get moved and bumped around, boy, I could remember wrapping those things and wrapping string around each little batch so they would not get unsorted, " Robbins said.

CNN: Ninety years of birdwatchers' notes going online